


kick it with the wolves

by daikonradish



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Baseball, Boys Being Boys, Cute, Fist Fights, Flirty Na Jaemin, Fluff, Gang Violence, Gangs, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan is Whipped, M/M, Na Jaemin is Whipped, Pack Dynamics, Past Relationship(s), Video Cameras, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23907574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daikonradish/pseuds/daikonradish
Summary: “Woah there,” Jaemin says, his mouth stretching into a yawn. He runs a hand through a bedhead of burnished blue, arms straining from behind the hockey jersey, and in a moment of weakness, he’s rather attractive, with dark eyes and fine features. It doesn’t help that the flowers fall over them like some cheap, big, and most definitely fat wedding. “Take me out to dinner first.”“I’d rather choke on my own tongue,” He replies, glowering at his ex-boyfriend.Or, Jaemin and Donghyuck used to date. Now, they don't. It should be simple, but it's not.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 136





	kick it with the wolves

**Author's Note:**

> hello, this was inspired by Kick It, and then the track video for Love, Again. so yes, it is all over the place but 🥴 aren't we all. anYways stream RIDIN AND ROLLIN RELOADIN

There are blankets painted with stars hanging from the windows, a collection of penny skateboards loaded on the neon lawn chairs they found in someone’s lawn, a volleyball rolling around on the floor taped with a picture of Moomin, strewn across the odds and ends of the old school bus. The records around him clatter as he steps forward, and he miraculously side-steps a half-eaten box of pizza, a few empty cans of spray bottles, and a clean stack of rented comics.

It’s a hard thing to do, no thanks to the brand-new sneakers that he bought in the only size that was available, a little too big. He is dangerously close to stepping on a banana, or even worse, the mysterious stain left behind from a chemistry project that went very wrong.

“Move along, bitch,” Renjun whines from behind him, nudging him forward.

And that’s all it takes for him to bump his feet against something hard and fall onto the ground.

His legs are tumbling as he goes down, and his flailing arms end up pushing a box full of garlands, exploding over him in an arrangement of the brightest plastic flowers. He expects his face to meet the cold hard ground and his knees to sting for weeks, but instead he lands on a familiar weight, and an arm that slings over his back.

“Woah there,” Jaemin says, his mouth stretching into a yawn. He runs a hand through a bedhead of burnished blue, arms straining from behind the hockey jersey, and in a moment of weakness, he’s rather attractive, with dark eyes and fine features. It doesn’t help that the flowers fall over them like some cheap, big, and most definitely fat wedding. “Take me out to dinner first.”

“I’d rather choke on my own tongue,” He replies, glowering at his ex-boyfriend.

“Then, choke.” Jaemin smiles.

They stare at each other, neither of them daring to be the first one to look away. It’s reflex, and only reflex, that he pushes his face closer, his hands bunching up on the rough material of the black hockey shirt as he pulls, exposing the length of a pale neck covered with twinkling chains. It is only when they are a breath away that he remembers to bare his teeth.

“Can you guys get a room?” Jisung says, peeking out from behind a glossed-out comic book. “Some of us are trying to keep our lunch in our stomach.”

He sticks out his middle finger in response, rolling to the side.

Renjun gives him a that look as he cracks open a battered can of coke, a little bit of disappointment and lot of exasperation. but as luck would have it, nobody comments on the way Jaemin keeps his arm around him, and he leans his head on his chest.

“Guess what,” Jeno intersects, fiddling with a grey camcorder. There is colored sugar painted across his face like warpaint, but that’s simply what happens when you stay up all night watching YouTube videos and also playing animal crossing. “I’m failing drama class.”

“Is that even possible?” Renjun frowns, and his frown only deepens when the others nod.

“It is,” Jeno nods, smiling a little too wide for someone failing drama class. “But I asked Mrs. Lee about it and she said I can make up my grade if I hand in a video about animals in the wild before the end of the month.”

“Okay.” Renjun nods, reaching for his phone in the back pocket of his bleached jeans.

“Okay.” Chenle echoes in, toying with the broken stereo that sits on the window. He’s the only one that didn’t get the dress code, with a baby blue basketball jersey in the middle of hockey season. He is also the one who left him on read in the chatting group for more than a few days, deserving the glare he sends him, even as Jaemin pulls at his cheek.

“So, I hope you don’t mind if I film you for a week.”

There is a detonation of music in the bus, followed by a stream of curse words and a phone that clatters onto the floor.

“Do you have a crush on Jaemin Na.”

He shoves an excessively large microphone in his face, one that looks suspiciously similar to the one in the school’s recording booth. He stares at him, soft, expectant, and for all extents and purposes, with stars in his eyes. There isn’t a person with two eyes and a mouth that could say no to Jeno when he looks at you like that.

He swallows back his curses, glancing at the camcorder, and as a result, at Chenle who holds the camera. Even though his forehead is scrunched-up behind the screen, his mouth hangs a little open, unable to hide his keen interest in the conversation. Outside the bus, there are hollers and shouts as the other boy are playing a game of football, except the only rule is that there are no rules.

“That, would be dumb.” He answers, a little lame, but there isn’t anything good that comes to his mind when he thinks about the boy with blue hair, the bane of his existence, or his bête noire, as his brother would tell him when he tried to teach him three languages in one summer. “Really dumb.”

“Oh?” Jeno tilts his head, “Why do you say that?”

“We broke up.” He explains to the camera, but he’s pretty sure everyone and their mother knows that. There are volleyballs hitting onto the window, and as soon as his head is turning, he regrets all his choices in life because he makes eye contact with Jaemin, who has taken off his jersey in favor of a plain white shirt, the sun breaking across a charming smile as he throws a ball straight at the window in front of him. “I would have to be the dumbest person in the world to fall in love with their ex-boyfriend.”

“Well, sometimes you can’t help it.” Jeno says, thoughtfully, “It’s just falling in love, again.”

“Nah, that’s a no for me, even if he gets on his knees,” He says, but his words, and maybe his excuses, dwindle as he stares at Jaemin. That is, until Chenle breaks into laughter behind the camera, and he feels the rush of heat reach his ears. He stands up, ignoring Jeno’s hands that are tugging on his jersey, pulling up the window and screwing his head out of the bus. “I think that if he wanted to get back together, he’d have to stop being such a fucking waste of space!”

Jaemin only blows him a kiss.

There is a resounding heat in the air, as the sun creeps into the school bus, crossing into his vision and making him consider taking out the bucket of warm soda and dousing it over his head. It doesn’t help that Chenle is resting on his lap, fingers covered with Spiderman band aids as he tries to tie a few dandelions together, all while he bumps up and down to the vibration of the phone in his pocket. He’s pretty sure that it’s his brother. All the boys are in the bus, other than the enigmatic Jaemin, which only gives him all the more reason to ignore it.

There is the thrum of bass behind him, and a stuttering of laughter, as Jisung is sprawled out on the backseats. His earphones are in, and his mouth is busy chewing on the wire, but he’s still really fucking loud. On the other hand, Jeno is soundlessly trying to fix the ring light that he borrowed from his sister, now broken into three pieces after using it as a frisbee. His camcorder sits beside him, the red-light staring back at him.

“Keep your hand still,” Renjun says, his attention focused on drawing the pattern of a flower on his right wrist, winding all the way around his middle finger, the black pen bleeding into his skin, like another vein, filled with wrath. From the way he presses the pen down, he knows that the flower will be around for more than a few days.

“Sorry.” He responds, but he doesn’t mean it. “I really want to hit Jisung.”

Jisung doesn’t look away from his phone, chewing on the wire, “Y’all hear something?”

He scowls, turning his head to bite, but Renjun pinches his skin.

“Ow,” He grumbles, “The fuck is that for?”

“You can hit him later. Right now,” Renjun narrows his eyes in concentration, throwing away black in favor of pulling out the brightest pink pen from behind his ear, “You are my muse.”

The doors of the bus creak open, and he brings his eyes down, staring at the black flower. He supposes it could use a touch of color, something to distract him from a boy with blue hair.

Jaemin stares at them and the compendium of half-empty bags of chips and crushed cans of coke and orange crush surrounding them like a really shitty summoning. He steps forward, weaving through the maze of adolescent paraphernalia, ignoring the way that the boys don’t say anything, looking at him in shock.

“What happened to your face?” Chenle gasps, sitting up in such a hurry that he nearly breaks Donghyuck’s chin.

“Nothing much,” Jaemin shrugs, lowering his head. “Just got into a little fight.”

It doesn’t look like nothing much.

His pale skin is stained with a dark bruise that runs from his left eye all the way to swollen cheeks, the shade of a bright red. He knows from experience that the red will settle into a nasty blue and purple and hurt like a motherfucker, or, a thrumming of hammers under the skin.

“With who?” Jeno asks, setting aside his equipment as he scrambles over to tend to his wounds. He shoves his hand into a box of condiment packets they collected from burger restaurants for a science fair, where they had thrown in all the bandages and disinfectant they could find.

“Some alpha from Neo.” His eyes meet his, but only for a moment, before he looks away. It sets a bomb of nerves in his stomach, and he really feels like punching something. “Mark, or something.”

If they are a pack of wolves that likes to skateboard and binge-watch a series of John Hughes films, then Neo is a pack of wolves that likes the taste of violence and power, involving themselves in small crimes around the city, with rumored connections to the mafia. But they’ve had a few fights with them before, usually because they try to steal from the really good doughnut shop that doubles as an unfortunate front for drugs.

“Shit, he did you in,” Jisung comments, stepping closer to get a closer look at the discolored skin. His earbuds hang from his neck, clicking together as he smiles, with teeth and all. “You sit there and take it, or what?”

“Jisung,” Chenle scrambles to his feet and follows after him, a half-finished bracelet of dandelions in his hand as he picks up a can of coke rolling on the ground. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“Nah. That fucker was good.” Jaemin lets them fuss over his wounds. He’s a little pale, a little heated, with his blue hair matted against his forehead, but he smiles like he always does. So charming, that it makes him want to howl. “Last I heard, he’s supposed to be some champion in the pack.”

“You sure you’re not just saying that?” Renjun teases, but he’s not looking at Jaemin. Instead, he’s looking at him, that pointed look in his eyes, as he pinches the skin under the flower. When he doesn’t react, he presses closer, whispering under his breath, “I’m warning you right now – don’t do anything.”

He ignores him and reaches for the vibrating phone.

He scrapes the bottom of his black boots against the reddened bricks, the shade of black rubber staining the walls of the brothel, or whatever they have taken to calling it now. He must have burned them on the fire pit, playing a little too close to the flames. The whine of fluorescent lights blink above him, flickering to an uneven beat, written in some Japanese letters that he can’t read, even though his brother tried to teach him so many times.

“You sure about this?” Chenle hushes, holding the camcorder in his hands. He had taken over Jeno’s documentary of sorts while he was volunteering at the nursing home and had followed him when he snuck out of the school bus.

He doesn’t say anything, only glancing at the red light of the camcorder.

There are noises coming from the entrance, and he watches as a scourge of drunken men hobble out, ties wrapped around their forehead, glasses hanging from the loops of their belts, and their pockets turned inside out. The scent of alcohol makes him scrunch his nose. He almost doesn’t notice the figure that slides out from behind them, someone around his size.

He shuffles his shoes against the ground, before rushing to follow them. Chenle walks a step behind him, swerving the camcorder around the district of red, but he doesn’t think Jeno will be able to use this footage.

“You Mark?” He tries to whisper, but it’s him so the whisper still reaches the stars.

The boy turns, hunched over with a cap pulled over his eyes and a mess of white bandages wrapped around his forearms. He doesn’t exactly look like he is the champion of Neo, with clean hands and a lowered head, but he supposes appearances can be deceiving. The graphic of a band on his shirt is bunched and wrinkled, but he recognizes the emblem as one of Jaemin’s favorite band. It only makes the churn of heat in his stomach go to his head.

“Who’s asking?” He answers, his voice low.

“Who else, dumbass,” He steps forward, pressing into his space.

The boy straightens into his full height, staring down at him, his dark eyes flashing to the shade of red under the whine of neon lights. He doesn’t break eye contact, because he’s never one to back down during a challenge.

The boy stares at him, dark eyes flashing in the shade of red under the flicker of neon lights.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mark, or whatever, growls.

“I’m Lee Donghyuck, motherfucker.” He answers, before punching him in the face.

Mark stumbles back, reaching to touch the blood that drips from his split lip. His eyes are no longer red, and instead, he’s glancing around the streets of the district, in something that can only be described as apprehension.

“You’re his – “Mark opens his mouth, but there is no time for pleasantries, as he bounces on his feet before rushing forward and smashing his fist into his face, again. And again, and again, as they stumble onto the ground, even as knees are pressing down into the gravel and his hands ache with every press of his closed fists on warm skin.

He raises his elbows as he blocks his face, not making any movement to retaliate. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t give a single shit about the rules of chivalry, as he keeps driving his fists down, even when the flower on his wrist smudges with the shade of blood. He’s not an alpha, which means his eyes don’t turn red, but that doesn’t matter, because there is a fire thrumming under his skin that wants to paint the world in red.

He can barely hear the world around him, and only catches a murmur of curses when there is a hand on his shoulder and a strong kick from the side. There is pain that reverberates in his stomach, reaching his stinging hands and ringing head, as his body lurches back, landing on the gravel with a resounding thud.

He lifts himself to his feet, whipping his head to growl at the gang that have gathered in front of him. From the dark clothes and bandages around their arms, he knows they are members of Neo. And based on the overwhelming scent of pheromones in the air, they are the brawnier members in the gang. There’s a crowd of people that has formed behind the fight, surrounding them with a heated interest, fueled by the alcohol in their blood.

There’s a tall one that stands over him, canines bared.

“What’s a pup doing in our territory?” He rumbles, a familiar accent in his words. Cantonese, he thinks, another one of the languages that his brother tried to teach him.

They reach for his collar, but he bends down, smashing his head against a hard abdomen. They stumble backwards, clutching their stomach, but only for a moment, because the other members are rushing forward, getting a hold of his arms. He growls low in his throat, and scratches at them, but he’s outnumbered, and they clutch his arms, presenting him to the tall man.

“You’re in Neo.” The man smiles, but it’s not kind, “And in Neo, the blood you spill has to be repaid.”

Donghyuck spits into his face.

His eyes flash red.

“Wait, Lucas,” Mark shouts, and from behind the tall man he can make out the outline of the boy on the ground, blood streaming down his nose and a terrible bruise of the brightest of reds blooming across his left eye to his cheek. “Don’t touch him. He’s Donghyuck Lee – Taeyong’s brother.”

“Shit.”

The members let go of him at the mention of his brother, backing away like he’s on fire.

“I’ll kill you.” He bares his teeth, glaring at Mark. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

Chenle laughs beside him, pressing the camcorder into his face.

There is a hum of music that bounces and ricochets on the underside of the bridge, flooding from the small boombox that sits on Chenle’s shoulder. He kicks cracked bottles and crushed cans of beer, stepping through the dead grass littered with burnt out cigarettes and a scattering of glass and abandoned clothes, trampled in the aftermath of many fights. They have the school bus as a den, but the underside of this bridge might just be their second.

He likes it.

After all, it’s easier to fight when the gravel does it for him.

The remains of a fight from the other night have been thrown into a rusted oil drum, his name and expiration date scraped somewhere on the bottom. He’s barely made it past a tripod that has been precariously set up on top of a stack of black and white posters behind the oil drum, when Jaemin has him in the crook of his arm, grinding his fist against his head.

“You’re a dumb motherfucker.” Jaemin growls, low in his throat.

“Fuck you,” He curses, trying to escape his hold.

“Why the fuck would you do that?” He doesn’t budge, only tightening his arm around his neck.

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.” He replies, running his tongue over his canines, wondering if he will have to bite. “You should be grateful I didn’t smash your head in too.”

He doesn’t have to, because Jaemin releases him. He stumbles back, running a hand over the back of his unmarked neck, out of instinct more than anything else, never breaking eye contact with him. There’s nothing that seems to change in dark eyes and a hardened mouth, but he knows Jaemin like the back of his hand, and he can tell that he’s fucking pissed.

“Huh,” Jaemin chuckles, but he doesn’t smile. “You didn’t think about me at all, did you.”

He wants to keep arguing, biting out words that burn his tongue, exploding in his mouth like foreign currency, but the boys are staring at them, with Chenle tugging at his arm and Jeno standing behind them, ready to break the fight. It doesn’t make him settle down, but he knows that he’s never won in a fight against his ex-boyfriend.

“Don’t start with this shit,” He whines, baring his teeth.

“All you do is think about yourself.” Jaemin continues, eyes darkening.

He scowls at him, but it’s hard to maintain the screw of his expression when its Jaemin staring back at him. It’s instinct, and only instinct, that he pushes closer, rushing into his space, and grabbing the collar of his sweater. Their faces are only centimeters apart, and the perfect distance for him to make out the discoloured hue of his bruise, bleeding into a deep blue.

“I did it for you.” He snarls, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“It’s not your fight, Donghyuck.” Jaemin snarls back, before pushing his hand away and brushing past him.

His brown hair is a mess on his head, streaked with sticky candy wrappers and crumpled up pieces of sheet music, the indent of the hardwood floor on his face, creating lines that run across his right eye, making him look like he had woken up on the day of reckoning rather than on the hardwood floor.

“Can you find another floor to sleep on?” Renjun grumbles, pushing him with his foot.

“Can’t” He sticks out a blue and green tongue, the consequences of a night binging on a combination of hard candies, soft candies, ice cream, and the suspicious concoction that Jeno created after watching bon appetit. It was all kinds of sticky and sweet, and he has a feeling he will be picking at his teeth for days. “I’ll be here until I die, and the ground swallows me whole.”

“Uh, no, that’s not happening,” He states, crossing his arms, “My room would smell for weeks.”

“For weeks.” Chenle echoes in, hanging over his stomach. His elbows bouncing up and down, as he enthusiastically taps on his phone, absorbed in the newest shooting game.

“Months, even.” Jisung chimes in, his head tucked into his shoulder, as he loudly chews on a lemon lollipop. His brown hair is tickling his cheek, and the sharp scent of gasoline from the newly dyed streaks of blonde in his hair make his head spin. But he can’t find it in himself to curse the boys out.

There’s an opening in the windows that lets the sun break across the wall, creating a show of shadow puppets, while a fan blows over them, washing them in cool air. Jeno sits over his head, a pencil in his hand as he tries to draw a perfect circle on his forehead, the red light of his camcorder set up behind him. Donghyuck lays there, on the floor, staring at the stickers on the ceiling, labelled with the names of planets that he doesn’t remember.

“Okay, just die then,” Renjun throws his arms up, exasperated. “But you heard it from me first - all you have to do is apologize.”

“Donghyuck has never apologized in his life.” Jeno explains, turning to the camera to break the fourth wall, “It’s a Gemini thing.”

“Wow, that’s funny,” Jisung comments on the documentary, crunching on the stick of the lollipop. “Just like in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

“I thought it was Brooklyn Forty-Nine.” Chenle pauses his game, staring at him in confusion.

Renjun kind of looks like he wants to scream.

He continues staring at the ceiling, counting the planets under his breath. His phone is vibrating in his back pocket, and he doesn’t hesitate to slide it out, bouncing it on the ground as he brings the bright screen to his face. It’s hard to make out the words when they are painted across his eyes, but he manages to read the sentence, a map attached to the message.

“Oh, fuck me.”

“What’s up?” Jeno asks, staring down at the polaroid of Donghyuck wedged into the case of the white phone, decorated with a border of ten or more stickers of small dogs.

“It’s Neo,” He shoves Jisung off his arm, and rolls Chenle to the side as he sits up, “They have Jaemin.”

“What?” Renjun shouts, before stumbling to his closet. He’s pushing around his clothes, pulling out a collection of bats painted with pink horses from a short period of time where they joined the baseball team. Apparently, you’re not supposed to jam nails into the bats. “Fuck, that can’t be good. They’re probably beating the shit out of him right now.”

The boys are standing up, the twinkle of plastic wrappers falling onto the ground, followed by a dusting of sugar. It’s hard to tell if they are not ready for a fight, considering the fact that they stayed up all night, or if they have never been more ready for a fight, considering the fact that they have more than a few pounds of sugar running in their system, energy drinks replacing their blood and twinkies replacing their brains.

“How did you know?” Jeno asks, grabbing his camcorder.

“Oh, this isn’t my phone.” He answers him, shoving it into his pocket. Renjun passes him a familiar bat, and he takes it in his hands, marveling at the sweet sparkle of the nails.

“Taeyong’s going to be mad.” Chenle remarks, almost hiding a smile.

“Well, no one can stay mad forever.” He thinks, or hopes, at least.

There is an echo of sirens in the distance, the concrete of the abandoned warehouse stitched with an animated collection of curses, drawings of dead men and broken moons. He pulls a bat across the ground, humming to the sound of nails hitting the ground, creating a trail of darkened gravel.

“What’s the plan?” Renjun asks, shaking a can of paint as he sprays onto the league of expensive cars parked outside.

“Uh,” He scrunches his face in thought, when Jisung whispers to him. “Fuck shit up.”

“Respectfully,” Jeno adds with a smile, even as he clenches his hands under brass knuckles.

There is a sea of people gathered in the warehouse, dressed in dark clothes, black bandanas wrapped around their necks. They don’t pay any attention as they wade through the masses like inexperienced swimmer, barely coming the surface. It seems like they are much too focused on whatever is happening in the middle of the warehouse.

He continues forward, clashing against a mass of skin and bone. He doesn’t stop until he makes it to the center, where the empty space is filled with one, two, four, maybe five towering members of the gang standing in front of each other. Their eyes are red and the alpha pheromones in the room are running rampant, heady with the thickness of aggression.

“What’s up with them?” Chenle asks behind him, curious.

“Don’t know, but I like it.” Renjun whispers, with a smile.

“Where’s Jaemin?” Jeno asks, rolling his shirt up his arms. “I don’t see him.”

He shuffles away from them, the barely contained whispers growing quieter with every step he takes. He’s looking through the black and red, over the shoulders of the members of the gang, when he catches the charming features of a boy with blue hair, huddled on the ground in the space in the middle.

He’s stumbling over, almost tripping on the damp floor of the warehouse. The scuffle of his burnt sneakers on the ground, leaving a track of black footprints, is not a quiet sound, and Jaemin is looking at him before he can look at Jaemin.

His blue hair is disheveled, as water drips from the side of his face. The pale shade of his skin is muted into an enflamed red, not the marks of a bruise, but almost. And when their eyes meet, he can see the shade of a brilliant red that bleeds into his dark eyes.

“You’re,” Jaemin says, his eyes widening. “A crazy son of a bitch.”

“Who’s this?” There’s a hulking man that turns to them, a nasty scar stretching from his eye to a curving mouth, and based on the way everyone stares at him, he must be rather important. There must be pounds of pheromones exuding from him, clouding the air with the choke of bloodlust, and it’s directed at Jaemin, as if he’s challenging him.

“My,” Jaemin wets his lips, “Ex-boyfriend.”

He scowls, unable to control his expression. It’s only then when he notices that there is someone beside Jaemin, standing between him and the man that stalks forward. It’s the tall man that he met the other night, with a bruised Mark behind him, clutching a bag of peas to his face.

“Move, before I make you.” The man growls.

“They’re only pups.” Mark says, pushing forward. “I’ll deal with them.”

“Don’t you dare talk back to me.” The man roars, shoving him to the ground. He lunges forward, grabbing a fistful of Jaemin’s hair, and dragging him to the middle of the room. He hates the claws in blue hair, the wince in a blue expression, and the heat in the back of his neck, desperate pounding of his heart as all his blood is reaches his head. “I’ll show you what I do to alphas that don’t know how to behave. Let this be a lesson to all of you.”

He tightens his grip on the bat.

“Maybe your little omega can watch and learn what a real alpha is like.”

The crowd turns to look at him. The red light of the camcorder blinks at him from across the room, the twinkle of brass catching the sunlight. Donghyuck smiles, with all the menace that he can muster.

Well, if they want a show.

He howls.

He never thinks, but for a moment when he’s swinging the bat down, he thinks about how small his hands are when wrapped around the baseball bat, the faded drawing of a horse on a cloud, the comically large blue eyes looking back at him. There are flashes of red and blue, and skin and bone, but all he can see is his reddened knuckles, holding so tight onto the baseball bat.

The bat rebounds to the sound of cracking bones, and he stumbles back.

There are nails clattering onto the floor, along with the stream of blood.

There’s a song in his head, but he doesn’t remember the words. But he does remember the beat, the move of his feet, as camaraderie detonates into chaos, the crowd turning on each other, their canines bared to bite. There is a rush of black on black in front of him, and he joins the fever of violence, swinging his bat.

“You’re fucking insane.” Jaemin cracks his neck, heaving onto his feet.

“You’re the one that’s _fucking_ insane.” Donghyuck sticks out his tongue, eyes crinkling.

Jaemin snorts, but he looks pleased. “Is that a promise?”

There are members rushing towards him, growling in a threat. He doesn’t hesitate to strike a couple fly balls, stepping forward and swinging his bat with the whistle of a low sound. He’s never been good at baseball, but what he lacks in precision he makes up for in power.

“I’m still mad at you.” He says.

There’s a man tumbling his way from the shadows, grabbing his shoulder and turning him around to stare at golden teeth. The touch doesn’t last for long because there’s a broken wheel ricocheting off his head. Jisung shoots him a delirious grin, barely ducking under a fist and returning the intention with a punch in the neck. He’s not really sure who taught him how to fight, but he guesses it’s a mix of his dirty moves and Renjun’s martial arts.

On that note, Renjun has started a spur-of-the-moment game of baseball. Every time Chenle throws a ball or a scrap of metal into the air, he’s hitting it with his pink baseball bat, striking a homerun with an explosion of glitter, gold and blood. He has a feeling that if they were still on the baseball team, the cleanup position would have been a hard fight, and that’s not even including the original cleanup hitter, Lee Jeno, himself.

“And I’m still mad at you.” Jaemin responds, hooking his arm around his waist to pull him flush against his side. He doesn’t even blink as he drives a harder than hard fist into a man’s face, before blinking down at him. There’s a reason that he always hast the highest score on the punching machine, after all. There’s a warm blush on his face, coloring him in a pretty pink as he smiles. “I’ll pick you up at seven?”

There’s a familiar laughter in the air, and he can’t help but smile back.

“Okay.” He flushes, staring into dark eyes.

“Wow, that’s hot,” Jeno interrupts, holding up his camcorder, stained with punctures of red. The other boys are gathering around them, twisting bandanas in their hands as they laugh. “I’m thinking it could be a great ending to my video. Can you guys make out, for like a few seconds, just to wrap it up?”

Donghyuck growls, reaching forward to snatch the camcorder out of his hands. But his feet are bumping against something hard, and he’s falling onto the ground, of course, not without bringing his boyfriend down with him. They land in a mess of limbs, crashing onto the wet ground.

Chenle laughs, breaking into the familiar tinkle of bright laughter.

He rolls onto his back, so that he shove his middle finger in his face.

But the only person standing over him is Taeyong, dressed in his smooth black suit, a black and white pinstriped tie hanging from his neck that brushes against the top of his nose.

“You are so grounded.”

“Do you have a crush on Donghyuck Lee?”

Jaemin stares up at the French windows of the sprawling estate, a vine of a hundred ivies climbing on the walls. There is a drumming of beats as the other boys throw the rocks that they find on the ground at the window, the brown and blue pebbles bouncing back onto the well-trimmed grass. It’s like a Shakespearean romance, except there isn’t a boy here that remembers anything about English literature. There’s a microphone hovering in front of his mouth, as Jeno smiles at him, with those stars he stole from the sky painted across his cheeks with an orange acrylic paint.

“Well, to be honest, I was a little scared,” He says, a little quiet, a little flushed as he looks around. There’s an overgrown tree that hovers over them, and he’s reminded of the countless times that he snuck into Donghyuck’s room after curfew. “But you know how it is. When I look at him, it’s like all my memories are deleted, and I’m in love with him all over again.”

“Ew,” Jisung groans, pretending to throw up. “You should get that checked out, man.”

Chenle sticks his head on Jeno’s shoulder. “Why did you guys break up anyways?”

“I don’t remember.” Jaemin smiles, staring at the rock in his hands.

He bounces the rock in his hands, before he swings his arm and whips it straight at the window.

The glass shatters.

The rock smashes through the window, and the boys start howling. They are pushing against him as they double down in laughter, rolling on the ground as they breath out all the air in their system. Jeno pats his back, respectfully, as he focuses his camcorder.

The window opens, or at least the part of the window that is still intact, opens, and Donghyuck sticks his head out, his arms covered with the long sleeves of his red and black flannel pajamas, a sleeping mask with some poetic French phrase written on it entangled in his soft, brown hair. He glowers down at him, reminding him more of a pretty princess in a tower than a very mad and very vengeful boyfriend. “I’m going to kill you, Na Jaemin.”

“Take me out to dinner first.” He calls out, smiling.

“That’s why I invited you all here.” Donghyuck growls, huffing in frustration, “I told you the front door was open, why the fuck would you break my window? Do you know how mad Taeyong is at me right now? He’s going to be even more pissed when he hears about this.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaemin frowns, but he doesn’t look apologetic. “Let me make it up to you.”

“Nah, no, nuh-uh, I am not doing this with you. You are all dead to me.” He sticks out his tongue, before closing the remnants of the window and turning back into the room.

“As you can see, animals in the wild always return to their base nature.” Jeno whispers into the camera, pressing it close to his face like a scene from a horror movie, “For Donghyuck and Jaemin, this means that they will continue fighting. Maybe forever, in an endless cycle.”

Jaemin glares at him, but there’s no venom in it.

Renjun is crying, wiping tears from his eyes. “Oh shit, I think this is the best thing that happened this week.”

“Did you see his face?” Jisung wheezes, holding his stomach. “Fuck, that was funny.”

“Ha-ha, yes.” Jaemin smiles at them, brushing away the blue hair in his eyes. He’s not really looking at them, so much as he is looking around them. “Well, you heard the man. Let’s get out of here.”

“What about you?” Chenle asks, when he notices that he is not walking with them out of the estate. The fallen petals from the arrangement of flowers around the estate have gathered on the material of his shirt, and he picks at the blue and yellow pieces, putting it together in a small bouquet.

He stands behind them, his hands in his pocket as he watches their retreating backs. “I have boyfriend benefits, which means that I will have dinner with him.”

They stare at him, dumbfounded.

Jaemin continues, enunciating his words. “Alone.”

They continue staring, dumbfounded, as he closes the gate between them.

“Even though these animals in the wild are always fighting, it’s really just an extremely complicated foreplay.” Jeno is talking into the microphone, as the sun sets into the ground over them, melting into a shade of lavender and pink. “But I suppose that’s nature.”

“Let’s just get some pizza.” Renjun sighs, scrolling through his cracked phone.

“Oh, how about some doughnuts,” Jisung pipes in, “I know a really good place.”


End file.
